Driving innovation

Technology innovation at Worldpay

We are at the forefront of new technology. Our projects in recent years have explored crypto-currency integration modules for ecommerce gateways; identity verification through facial recognition at point of sale; ‘Internet of Things’ payment integration; enabling mobile devices to accept cards; consumer protection standards in emerging ‘invisible payments’ methods.

We act as advocates for our customers, playing an active role in technology standards forums. We also host events such as hackathons to help foster innovation and encourage people to apply creative technology to payments.

Charity collection tin

Payments technology is rapidly driving us towards a cashless society, but where does that leave the humble charity collection tin?

As leaders in modern money, we’re determined to make sure that charities such as the Royal British Legion don’t get left behind. So, working with technology company Thyngs and the NatWest bank, we developed two new charity collection tin concepts for the modern world.

One approach builds contactless payment technology into the tin. In 2016, for the first time, people were able to donate to the Poppy Appeal simply by waving their card or mobile phone – as easy as dropping loose change into a tin. With donations set at £2 a tap, people could quickly buy their poppy and help support veterans of the UK’s armed forces. A second approach used QR codes to guide smartphone users to an online donation page.

Charities face a huge challenge collecting donations in an increasingly cashless society, but by developing new technologies we are giving them even more ways to raise the funds they rely on.

Extra Credit scheme

We’re always looking to find new ways to help our customers make a positive difference to their own communities and in the USA we’ve been working with our partners Extra Credit to do just that.

Extra Credit helps schools and non-profit organisations generate donations from local small businesses. Thanks to our partnership with them, businesses who choose Worldpay as their payments partner can have a proportion of their processing costs automatically donated to a local school or non-profit. It’s a way for us to help our customers build more vibrant and productive communities.

Partnering with Pennies: the digital charity box

Worldpay is proud to have been the first acquirer to support Pennies way back in 2011. Pennies is the digital upgrade of the traditional charity tin, which lets consumers donate a few pence to charity when they make a payment by card, whether in-store, online or via an app. It has been an amazing success: every three seconds a UK consumer makes a donation through Pennies.

The retailer can choose the charity they want to support and the customer always has the choice to donate or not. No data is collected and there is no follow up; it really is just like dropping a few pence in a charity tin – but via debit or credit card.

Through Pennies, we’ve helped our customers unlock an amazing £1.7 million for charities. We have made Pennies one of our charity partners and will be developing a contactless payment option for them. We are also helping even more of our customers to join the movement that gives small digital change a big purpose.